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Comment by blitzar | Hacker News Reader

(~2018) In India, women represent 45% of total computer science enrollment in universities, almost three times the rate in the United States, where it is 18%.

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And in Iran, it's even higher (1). It is not what you would expect from either country based on the stereotypes people have in their minds.

(1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyguttman/2015/12/09/set-to-ta...

The stereotype in my mind is that countries in Asia prioritize STEM a lot, so this makes sense to me. And they don't call it STEM, it's just school.

The stereotype in my mind ...

countries in Asia prioritize education a lot, prioritize good jobs and good careers a lot. Children are pushed towards the schooling that offers the best careers and STEM is it at the moment.

I did forget about lawyers, the other stereotypical Iranian-American career that isn't STEM. The part of my family from Iran jokes about this a lot, saying even lawyers unofficially go by the title "doctor" because of the status it holds, idk if that's true.

And then people wonder why Asians are overrepresented in high-paying careers in the US. Surely, it might be because of lack of DEI programs.

The 70% statistic is very prominent, but some of my Iranian friends were incredulous of it. Some speculate that men tend to pick up skills during mandatory military service, so women make up a larger proportion of college graduates. Interestingly when you look for statistics on the workforce itself (rather than graduates with STEM degrees), you see familiar ratios of ~20-25%. E.g. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/425963/23-percent-of-mobile...

"Women make up 48 percent of internet users, 45 percent of cellphone users, and 23 percent of mobile app developers in Iran, Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said here on Sunday."

I can't seem to find stats on the aggregate gender breakdown of software developers in Iran.

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